By John Klima
Staff Writer

The most overblown moment of the Mets and Dodgers series came when Brad Penny had a handful of select words for Shawn Green on Wednesday, reminding the former Dodger that it is not proper baseball etiquette to pick pitch location and relay it to the hitters, as Penny accused Green of doing.

The moment was exaggerated a touch, as it seems to be any time players on opposing clubs are observed talking to each other during a game. The moment did, however, have meaning for what this series was for the Mets.

Was this sweep an overblown slump? Or was this a signal that the Mets may have more questions that anyone has anticipated?

After the Dodgers completed a three-game sweep this week, only one thing was certain. The Mets didn’t play like a great team. They played like a team with a few great players. By the end of the series, they hadn’t only been swept, but flogged, because they played uneven baseball. The Dodgers, who nobody would mistake for a team of power hitters, had rifled their pitching staff to pieces.

There’s nothing worse than good pitching to complicate a slump, and the Dodger bullpen turned the first two games into six-inning affairs. The Mets had small leads in each game, but never scored past the fourth inning in any game. Only David Wright, who left town with a 15-game hitting streak, was productive. Jose Reyes scored one run in three games. Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado were a combined 3-for-24. Green returned from a broken foot, ignored Penny’s suggestion that he was picking and tipping, and went 3-for-12.

The Mets hit .222 in the series, their bullpen looked flat, and even left-hander Billy Wagner gave up a home run to James Loney, a left-handed hitter, a rare moment that nicely summarized their visit to Los Angeles. Their starters – Orlando Hernandez, John Maine and Jorge Sosa – looked like guys who couldn’t get past the middle innings.

Slumps not withstanding, the Mets’ struggle creates questions. They entered Yankee Stadium for the Subway Series Friday night with a 2-10 record in June and had lost every series they played this month. With series losses to Arizona, Philadelphia, Detroit and the Dodgers, and with the Yankees, Twins, A’s, Cardinals and Phillies on the horizon, the Mets suddenly found themselves in a spot this club wasn’t supposed to be in at this time of the year.

“I think this is testing our resiliency,” Wright said. “It’s testing how much heart and character this team has. We need to turn it around and turn it around fast because we’ve got four quality teams coming up. This is an important stretch for us. We have to finish up strong before the All-Star break.”

While General Manager Omar Minaya and his club were smiling for Sports Illustrated this week, the Mets were changing their story from day to day in Los Angeles. On Monday afternoon, Green said this wasn’t a make-or-break stretch before the All-Star break for the Mets. By Wednesday night, the club was speaking differently.

“Right now, every team we play is embarrassing us,” Wagner said. “I don’t think that it’s confidence. I think it’s more along the lines of frustration. It’s not a lack of effort, but a lack of focus. You need a few things to go your way, but the only way to get that is to make it happen. For the last 12 games, we haven’t done that.”

That’s a polite way of a pitcher, speaking on behalf of the staff, publicly asking the hitters to please score some runs. It is a telling sign, however, when a player feels like it has to be done through the media rather than behind closed clubhouse doors.

Defensively, the Mets had a center fielder by trade, rookie Carlos Gomez, playing left field in place of injured Moises Alou. Gomez was crunched between the warning track and the wall when he fell chasing after a double. Catcher Paul Lo Duca threw the ball all over the field. By the end of the series, Reyes and Delgado were dropping routine balls. The Mets played like a beaten bunch, which begs the question. Is this an anomaly or are the Mets not quite as good as they’ve been made out to be?

When manager Willie Randolph started breaking out the Billy Martin references, you had to wonder if the Mets were internally asking the same question. “Maybe I’ll just do a Billy Martin and kick the food table,” Randolph said Wednesday afternoon, following that up with the pleasant suggestion that his club wasn’t “ready to cut their wrists or anything.”

The Mets are going to be tough to reconfigure if this is closer to the kind of team they really are. They lead the league in stolen bases, but didn’t play like a team that felt good about running and drawing walks. This means they are subject to the kind of batting slumps that ravaged them in Los Angeles. Reyes is their game-changer. Without him on base in front of Wright, they look like a team of designated hitters. That can be tough to change in the NL, even for Minaya, who is a love-him-or-hate-him figure inside baseball.

You will encounter front office people who believe that he is an arrogant climber. You will encounter those who privately say that Minaya has a preference for Latin players to the detriment of his player evaluation decisions. Some of those same people, however, will also say that he’s a solid club builder. Such is the way baseball works. Rarely does everyone agree.

What the Mets do agree on is that they need Pedro Martinez back. Martinez threw another side session this week, but the Mets say there is no answer to when he can go to the minor leagues to see how close his shoulder is to making a difference in their season.

Their starting pitching could be more fragile than they think it is. Maine is a nice command-oriented right-hander who can survive down-and-away, but unless he’s got pinpoint command, he’s going to have to battle. Tom Glavine, still as savvy as they come, is stalled at 295 victories. How much can they expect from a 41-year-old left-hander? Hernandez didn’t maintain his stuff long enough to beat the Dodgers. Sosa came undone after four innings. Oliver Perez is healthy again and throwing harder than he did last year. In the National League, this is probably enough starting pitching. But losing a series of close games to good teams is troubling for any club, at any time of the year.

“The good teams are the ones that knock it off after 10 games or so instead of it going on for six weeks,” Green said.

While the Mets looked for answers, Penny accused Green of espionage.

“I was a little mad at the time because he was giving the location of pitches,” Penny said. “When you do that, you get a reputation.”

Green laughed off Penny’s suggestion.

“He said I was giving location of pitches from second base, which wasn’t true,” Green said. “[That’s] a little bit of paranoia on their side. If you think someone is stealing signs, you change the signs, it’s that simple.”

The Mets would love to find exactly what combination of signs it will take for them to end their own struggle before their own paranoia gets the better of them.